Straight to Hell Lyrics
[Verse 1]
If you can play on fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust
Water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise
[Chorus]
There ain't no need for ya
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
[Verse 2]
Wanna join in a chorus of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa, papa, papa, papa, papa-san, take me home
See me got photo, photo, photograph of you
And mama, mama, mama-san
Of you and mama, mama, mama-san
Let me tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo, kid
It ain't Coca-Cola, it's rice
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boy
[Bridge]
Oh papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home
So mama-san says
[Instrumental Break 03:01-03:23]
[Verse 3]
"You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International, hah, Junkiedom U.S.A
Where Procaine proves the purest rock man groove and rat poison"
The volatile Molotov says
"Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh
Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, straight to hell"
[Verse 4]
Can you cough it up, loud and strong?
The immigrants, they wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere, most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land
There ain't no asylum here
King Solomon, he never lived 'round here
Straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boy
Go straight to hell, boys
Go straight to hell, boys
Oh papa-san, please take me home
Oh papa-san, everybody, they wanna go home now
About
“Straight to Hell” is a song about immigration, from a British and American perspective.
The first verse deals with the UK, which saw immigration from its former colonies in the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent after WW2.
The second is about the children of American soldiers in Vietnam. These American-Vietnamese were stopped from gaining American citizenship.
The third verse takes a more general view, in “any frontier, any hemisphere”.
The music from the song was famously sampled by the American producer Diplo in the song “Paper Planes”, which he wrote with Sri Lanka-born singer M.I.A.. That is also a song that deals with the mistreatment and stigmatization of foreigners.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
I’d written the lyric staying up all night at the Iroquois Hotel. I went down to Electric Lady and I just put the vocal down on tape, we finished about twenty to midnight. We took the E train from the Village up to Times Square. I’ll never forget coming out of the subway exit, just before midnight, into a hundred billion people, and I knew we had just done something really great.
- 5.Janie Jones
- 12.Rock the Casbah
- 14.Police & Thieves
- 17.Clampdown
- 18.Ghetto Defendant
- 19.Armagideon Time
- 20.Stay Free
- 21.I Fought the Law
- 22.Straight to Hell
- 24.Garageland
- 25.White Riot
- 26.Complete Control
- 28.Tommy Gun
- 30.The Call Up
- 31.Hitsville U.K.
- 32.Radio Clash
